


unexpected, but not unwelcome

by rainny_days



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Mutual Pining, basira is Trying Her Best, but sometimes falls into old habits, can't wait for my semi-happy ending to get jossed by sadness!! love that!!, daisy wants to get better, georgie is a saint, i don't listen to ghosthunting podcasts so i have no clue how to write what's a ghost im sorry, im worried about martin: the show, let jon RELAX, let martin have friends 2k19, melanie shows her love through violence, mostly canon-compliant, no beta we die like men, spoilers for up to MAG149, until it's not lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-06 05:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: When Martin agrees to help Peter to protect the Archives, he expects the betrayal. He expects the anger.What he doesn't expect, is the trust.(or, four encounters Martin had in the Lonely, and one that came after)





	unexpected, but not unwelcome

**Author's Note:**

> the quality of tma fic is depressingly high and i can't believe i'm posting something and dragging y'alls yelp rating down. i'm extremely sorry.

(i)

“You’ve been hanging around with Lukas.”

Martin startles badly enough to half-spill his tea, his wince as much for the scalding liquid over his hand as it was for the sudden memory of another burn scar, on another familiar palm. He doesn’t answer Melanie as he goes for the paper towels, beginning to wipe the counter down.

“_Martin_,” she says, and he barely restrains an exhausted sigh.

“Melanie,” he responds, still not looking at her. She’s very close to his back, vibrating with rage that Martin isn’t even sure is actually for _him_. Melanie’s angry at everything, these days, though he’s pretty sure his promotion isn’t helping.

The fact that Melanie has been the first to comment on his absence is a sad testament to Martin's social life. Not that he'd ever had much of one, of course, what with his mother and the constant lying about everything in his life and, later, the literal monsters under his bed, but surely there must've been some point where the only person to notice him _didn’t _want to stab him.

He finishes mopping up the cooling tea on the counter and turns to throw it in the bin, not surprised when he finds her unnervingly close. She steps in closer, crowding him against the counter. Martin doesn't even need to check if there's a knife in her hand, because there's always a knife in her hand. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demands. “Elias put him here. He’s been making people _disappear_.”

“I’m being careful,” he says, trying to inch his way out of the conversation. He’s a good deal bigger than her, but she has the advantage of a sharp object and a lot of presence. Maybe that’s why Peter didn’t try with her- because of the presence, not that the knife hurt.

She gives him a look that usually precedes broken glassware. “You’re working with him.” It’s not a question.

There are no words for how much Martin does not want to have this conversation. “It’s not- It’s complicated.”

“Not _that _complicated, from where I’m standing. Just working with the guy who’s trying to destroy the world, who’s working for the _other _guy trying to destroy the world.”

Martin glances, briefly, at the bandages that peek out of her sleeve from the Flesh, the thin scar across her collarbone, and thinks about trying to explain it to her. Trying to put into words how it felt to watch Basira bandage her, wondering how long it'll take before he loses someone else. He knows that she wouldn't understand - or, she wouldn't try, which is maybe more damning - because she still resents him for not killing Elias when he had the chance. Working with a monster in order to protect themselves from other monsters isn't a compromise she's willing to see anyone make.

He pulls himself up, trying to inject some steel into his voice. If he’s going to do this, he might as well do it properly. “I’m not- _betraying _you, or anything. I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he tells her, and is proud of his voice for remaining mostly still. 

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she tells him, point-blank. “You’re going to swan off with Lukas and die, and leave me and Basira to deal with everything. Like we always do.”

“And Jon,” Martin adds automatically, even as he registers the sting of her words.

She scoffs at the mention of Jon, eyes flashing with fury the way they always do, and Martin avoids her gaze as he steps away. She lets him.

“Just, trust me. Please.” he says quietly, as he leaves. She doesn’t answer him- he doesn’t expect her to.

(ii)

“I think your plant is dying.”

Martin carefully hides his grimace at the shadow that falls over his new desk. “Ah, welcome back, Basira.”

The woman in question looks unimpressed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Were you going to tell me about all this -” she gestures around the quiet room. “- yourself? Or were you expecting Melanie to tell me?”

“You weren’t really around for me to tell,” Martin points out, unable to keep a sliver of annoyance from filtering into his voice. From her slight flinch, it hit the mark. He sighs. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“You didn’t think I’d care,” she repeats disbelievingly. “That you got a promotion. To be the assistant of Peter Lukas. Our new boss.”

He shrugs. “It’s not really that different from what I was doing before...? I mean, there’s a lot more HR stuff, but otherwise-”

“Don’t try to avoid the question,” Basira cuts him off. Martin sighs, because yeah, he didn’t really expect that to work with her. “Why did you agree to work for him?”

_Who says he was the one who asked? _He doesn’t say. Instead, he fiddles with his pen, all too aware of the quiet, cold corners of the room. Peter couldn’t have found a better place to put him, really, if his goal was to keep Martin aware at all times of his possible presence. He’d thought that working under the glare of the Beholding for a decade would’ve stripped him of the fear of being watched, but there’s something uniquely unnerving about Peter’s singularly personal interest, so different from Elias’ detached Knowing.

“It’s for the best,” he says, finally. “Trust me.”

“Is he threatening you?” Basira asks, voice going low and urgent. “Martin, we can help._ I_ can-”

“You _can’t_,” Martin interrupts sharply. “Basira- just, leave it. Please. Let me do my work.”

Basira looks at him for a long moment, and Martin pretends not to see the desperation in her face. Basira, of all people, knows how he feels. It’s why he could never bring himself to resent her for walking out where Jon didn’t- because he can’t possibly resent her more than she resents herself, for not remembering Daisy when she left.

He looks down, watches her shadow shift on his desk; a sharp, jerky motion that he takes as a nod.

“I’ll water it for you,” she says, and he holds his breath until she leaves the room, letting it out as he feels the beginnings of static across his skin.

(iii)

There's always a yellow door in the hall to his office. Martin takes it for the offer that it is, and never knocks.

He's touched anyways.

(iv)

Martin’s used to a certain lack of subtlety in the way that people - non-eldritch beings, anyways, though Peter wasn’t really anything you could actually call subtle - interact with him, which is why he’s not sure whether to find Daisy’s particular approach refreshing or profoundly disturbing.

He’s pretty sure she knows he knows that she’s been following him around, just like he’s pretty sure she isn’t sure _how _he knows, and is a little perturbed by it. To be honest, _he _isn’t sure how he knows, except that sometimes the tiny webs at the corners of his apartment are disturbed, and he’s sure without question that it’s because of her. Just like how he knew even before he reached for the door of Elias’ office that the door would be broken, that there would be a signed employment contract inside with _Alice Tonner_ scrawled at the bottom. 

He doesn’t think too hard about it, because he thinks he’s not supposed to. Not now.

He isn't sure _why _she's following him around, though, if not to maim him. They'd never gotten along, even before her untimely not-death, and he'd never grown to trust her in the same way that he trusted the others, although he thought he could depend on her loyalty to Basira, at least. He'd been frightened of her, even as he thought he understood parts of her, like the part that led to her working for Elias to protect Basira. He's not as afraid of her now, not after almost a year working under a more monstrous being than she'll ever be. These days, he doesn't have that much fear to spare.

He thinks that she might be keeping an eye on him for Jon, maybe, and it stings. But when he catches glimpses of Jon around the archives he still has the exact same haggard weariness to him- not that Martin thought that following him would mark any improvements on Jon's health, _but_\- well. And Jon still looked at him sometimes, when Martin's a little too slow to hide, with the same earnest, hopeful look that makes Martin believe that he's keeping his promise. 

Still, that leaves Daisy's presence a mystery, albeit one that Martin is content to put on the back-burner in favor of more pressing matters. It works, as much as ignoring anything weird in his life works, up until it doesn't.

Daisy coming into his office is new. Her actually talking to him, even more so. Neither of them mention the previous weeks of stalking, steering around the topic in favor of worrying Jon and Basira, something that they have in common. This returned version of Daisy is...strange, lowercase ‘s’ (he has to believe that Jon would be able to See if it wasn’t actually Daisy, and surely the fact that he can wonder at her changes, unlike with the thing-that-wasn’t-Sasha, means that they’re organic rather than Stranger?). She’s careful, and quiet, and tired, and Martin catches himself feeling sympathy for her before he can help himself. 

He thinks that he would’ve been able to like this Daisy, if he’d let himself.

She talks to him, and comes back the day after. Two days after that. Often enough that Martin almost doesn’t startle at the sound of a non-Peter voice in the room. Often enough for him to be stupid, to barely catch the beginnings of static in time to get her out before Peter makes himself known.

He leaves the tape, after, both to warn her about Jon (_what the hell, Jon_?) and as a silent apology.

He’s not surprised that she doesn’t come back.

(v)

Meeting Georgie Barker in person is not like anything Martin had expected.

She looks the way he’d expected her to: pretty and fashionable and put-together, far more like an actual human being than anyone he’d met since- since _Prentiss_, dear lord. When she speaks to him, her voice is kind but firm, straightforward and clever in a way that Martin can easily - resentfully - imagine Jon falling for. He doesn’t like her - he _can’t _like someone who’s so easily given up on Jon - but he imagines that he’s in the minority. They talk, he disappears, and he thinks that’s that.

Then he hears the next episode of What the Ghost.

He doesn’t mean to - he hardly listens to anything, these days, other than old statements and static, but he catches a sliver of the newest episode from Melanie, who never puts on headphones if she thinks she can get away with it.

“- and then he just. Wasn’t there,” Georgie says, voice clear and...more, somehow. “Look, I’m not saying that a ghost got snippy with me over my ex, but considering all the weird shit that goes on in the Magnus Institute, an undead assistant is hardly the weirdest thing they’ve seen.”

He thinks about leaving it alone, thinks that Peter would probably find it more amusing than anything, would make some pointed comments to him and leave it alone, but. Melanie smiles more now, when he catches glimpses of her, and she’s important to Jon.

He doesn’t think about what Jon would think of it, if he even listens.

“What is it with you people thinking I’m dead?” he asks, and doesn’t smile when she spins around with startled eyes. 

She recovers quickly enough. “I didn’t know you listened to my show.”

“I don’t- Melanie does, though.”

The smile that he gets at that is involuntary and fond. “Oh,” she says, sounding pleased. She coughs a little. “And- ‘you people’?”

“Jon asked me the same thing,” he tells her, getting a surprised laugh in response.

“He _didn’t_.”

“We were being attacked by supernatural worms,” he adds casually.

“Oh, _Jon_.”

He tries not to hurt at the easy way she says his name, all familiar exasperation and affection. He shakes his head. “That’s not actually the point,” he says. “I just- you might not want to talk about-” he flaps his hand. “-me, maybe. Or the archives, on your show.”

She arches an eyebrow at him. “Are you...worried for me?”

“I don’t actually want you dead. Or, you know, disappeared.”

The look she gives him at that is uncomfortably shrewd. “Is that what happened to you? _Disappearing_?”

“What happened to me is none of your business,” he says, discomfited back into defensiveness. He doesn’t like the way her mouth creases into a frown at his words.

“You know,” she says. “I was wondering why, if you were so keen on me talking to Jon, you aren’t talking to him yourself.”

“Not all of us _can _help him, even if we want to,” Martin informs her, sharp.

Georgie tucks a curl behind her ear. “I know,” she says consideringly. “But I think he’d appreciate it- more from you than from me.”

Martin desperately does not want to hear this from Jon’s ex-girlfriend. “Look,” he says. “All I wanted to do was to warn you- Jon wouldn’t want you in danger. Neither would Melanie.”

She shrugs, infuriatingly calm. “I’m not sneaking around or anything,” she says. “And I don’t plan on getting involved more than I am. I’ll be fine.”

He sighs. “Fine,” he bites out. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He walks away this time, instead of disappearing, and hears her footsteps eventually moving in the other direction.

That week, he catches her podcast again. She mentions supernatural worms, and he finds it a little harder to hold on to his grudge.

(+1)

Martin breathes through the ache in his chest, sharper than the weight of the Lonely, and has never felt more grateful for bruised ribs.

The archives are gone now, in truth. Elias had counted on a lot of things when he got Peter to stand in for him, but he underestimated the extent to which his loosened hold on the institute weakened it, made dark corners that passed under the watch of the Beholding where Peter left his mark. Where Martin, with quiet steps and infinite patience and months ignoring the spiderwebs, tucked his plans until he finished weaving.

Now, he pulls himself out of the rubble that used to be the Magnus Institute, coughing as the soot settles on his clothes. He blinks, takes off his glasses, attempts to wipe the grime off of them with his equally dirty sleeve, and looks around. He sees Daisy pulling Basira onto the sidewalk, the two of them collapsing onto each other with relief as much as exhaustion. A door appears on the concrete and opens, Melanie sneezing as she steps out. He turns, stumbles, and a hand catches him at his elbow.

He turns around. “Jon?”

Jon gives him an expression which, in another life, might charitably have been seen as a relative of a smile. There’s an alarming amount of blood dripping down his face, and the hand that’s not holding his arm is hanging alarmingly at his side. “Martin.”

Martin grabs Jon’s face in both hands, turning his head from side to side. “Oh my god, did you get hit on the head? Sorry- stupid question, of course you did. We need to get you to the hospital right away. Do you feel dizzy? Can you see me? Do you need me to-”

“Martin,” Jon says, and the smile in his voice is genuine, rare enough for Martin to falter. “I’m fine. It’s just a cut. I can see as well as I always could-” his voice tilts to the ironic at that, and Martin doesn’t bother to hold back his bark of laughter. “And I’d prefer to just-” he tugs at Martin’s sleeve, and Martin lets himself be pulled to the edge of the destruction. To be gently pushed into sitting on the ashen ground. “Rest. For now.”

“Oh,” Martin feels suddenly awkward. “Um- yeah. Okay. I’ll let you rest- let me go call emergency services, not that they wouldn’t have gotten a dozen calls already-”

“Actually,” Jon says, quiet. “I...wouldn’t mind some company. If you don’t mind.”

Martin chokes himself into a coughing fit, glad that his face is probably too grimy to show a blush. “I- uh- yeah! Okay, I can- I can do that.”

It’s strangely comfortable, sitting with Jon, in a way that Martin didn’t know it could be. Jon almost looks content, for the first time since Martin has met him, and it loosens something in his chest.

“...I don’t think I ever got to tell you this,” Martin says, voice soft. “But I’m glad you’re back.”

Jon takes a breath, lets it out. “I- actually, I think I can say now that I’m glad to be back.” he hesitates. “Gladder, now. Because of you.”

Martin opens his mouth, not sure what to say, and finds himself blurting out: “Do you want to grab dinner?”

Jon blinks at him. “What?”

“Dinner, do you want to- have it. With me. Not today, of course- unless you want to? But, um, another day, probably-”

“Yes,” Jon interrupts, thankfully stopping Martin’s verbal spillage. “I- I’d like that, actually.”

Martin can’t stop the smile that takes over his face, is grateful that he doesn’t _have _to, now. Jon stares at him for a moment, eyes bright with something that Martin shies away from naming, before cautiously putting his hand over Martin’s. 

Martin lets him, slides their fingers together, and finally lets himself stay.

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically my thesis 'martin blackwood deserves friends'. if u want to see me slowly lose my mind bc of jonny goddamn sims join me at [my tumblr](https://tweetsongs.tumblr.com)


End file.
